Download a Dad Test Guide

19 June 2009

The Think Fathers Dad Test is designed to help organisations, projects and services start to assess how father-inclusive their service is, with ideas for small changes that can help meet the needs of mums, dads and children more effectively.

Why not sign up as an Agency Champion?

If you’re interested in the Dad Test, why not sign up your organisation, project or service as an Agency Champion? All this means is that your agency must commit to:

• Work towards delivering services which systematically engage with fathers and support father-child and parental relationships
• Do the Dad Test – assess how father-inclusive your services are, and work out your own action plan for how to meet the needs of both parents more effectively (click here for more details).
• Feed back your Dad Test results to us.

The Champions scheme is NOT intended as a mark of quality, although many Champions will be doing excellent work with dads. Rather, it is about ‘championing’ fathers and fatherhood. As an Agency Champion you will use the Dad Test to assess the father-inclusiveness of your services and develop strategies for improving your performance – and let us know how you’re getting on. As outlined below, we will be on hand to support you all the way….

You can sign up your agency as an Agency Champion by clicking here, filling in the relevant details in the body of the email and clicking ‘send’.

The Fatherhood Institute offers lots of free support for Champions!

All Champions will have access, free of charge, to support from the Institute’s new team of Regional Development Officers (click here for details). From January 2010, Champions will receive Dad Test-related eshots and regular email newsletters about the campaign, including analysis of policy and research developments, interesting work being developed by Champions, and ideas for good practice. Our new website (launching spring 2010) will also provide an expanded and more interactive space for Champions to learn about and debate father-inclusive approaches. Here you will be able to create and share your own Champion page describing your work. All Agency Champions will be able to use the Think Fathers Logo in their own promotional materials.

Champions Plus – our premium package

Agency Champions will also be able to buy our new Champions Plus support package. Champions Plus is designed to help you carry out a detailed self-assessment of how father-inclusive your agency is, and to develop and implement an action plan to support father-child and parental relationships more effectively.

The Champions Plus package includes:

• A Dad Test Logbook – which identifies in detail exactly what you need to do to become father-inclusive, and enables you to record your progress and map out your strategies for becoming more father-inclusive. The Logbook is currently available in hard copy format, but will be available in an online version from spring 2010
• Intensive, targeted support from our new team of Regional Development Officers, for a nominated link person in your agency, project or service
• 10% discount on all Fatherhood Institute training and consultancy – designed specifically to support your agency to fulfil the requirements of the Dad Test (for more details about our training options, click here). An agency with 25 staff would earn back £180 – more than their Champions Plus fee – when booking a one-day course for all their staff • E-mail advice line
• Priority booking for events.

To buy Champions Plus, first sign up as an Agency Champion (click here), then contact your Regional Development Officer, who will register you to Champions Plus and arrange invoicing – and will be happy to talk through any other requirements or queries.

Please join us!

We need your help to improve children’s lives – now. Click here to sign up as a Think Fathers Champion, and work with us to strengthen fathers’ relationships with their children. To recommend this campaign to others, send them to www.fatherhoodinstitute.org/thinkfathers.

Find out more about the Think Fathers campaign…

Click here to find a series of articles that describe the campaign, and how you can contribute to it.

Why we need fairer policies for mums and dads: Guardian video

FI on Twitter

Schools – boost your results by becoming a FRED provider
‘When I see my children at the weekend they say, “We don’t want to go to McDonald’s – can we read stories instead?”.’
You probably already know how important dads can be to their children’s learning – and if you don’t, you can find out here.